Minutes of the Management Committee

1. Chairman’s Comments

Website: The website was kept up to date where possible. Reports from the Transport and Town Character Groups were regularly received but the content for other groups was less current.
The Chairman reminded the Committee that minutes of the Management Committee meetings were published on the website and he was most reluctant to change them. It would be less controversial if reports for the website were factual rather than speculative.

Communications: The Chairman had raised concerns about communications with the Policy Planning department at EHDC and hoped that dialogue between the department and the Town Character Group would improve.

Road Closures: On the 8th April a meeting on road closures had been held between the Town Clerk, Philip Haines, Pete Drew and EHDC Officers. The outcome was that permission for road closures for the Food Festival Event and the August Bank Holiday Event would be given. The legal position remained unclear and EHDC staff involved in the road closures had been indemnified to ensure that they did not carry personal liability if challenged. EHDC would be taking the matter up with the Government to call for new powers for local authorities to temporarily shut roads for events that enhanced town and village centres.

Retail and Business: Agreement had not been reached on the future management of the Square. Options had been tabled at the Community Forum meetings but none had been accepted. Further discussion would take place at the next Community Forum.
Mr. Gammon proposed that a town collective, to include the Association of Petersfield Businesses, the Churches and Petersfield Tomorrow should put forward some proposals to kick start the procedure rather than wait for the next Forum in July. It was agreed that this would be very helpful.

AMT: Petersfield Tomorrow’s membership of the AMT had been renewed.

2. Minutes of previous meeting and matters arising

Town Design Statement: The TDS budget was £ 3366. A detailed copy of the budget was needed.
The draft document was scheduled to be completed in the autumn.

Events: The Food Festival and the Bank Holiday Event were being organised by “Petersfield Events”.

Employment survey for young people: Liza Smith had contacted the Farnborough group (based in Crondall) who were willing to work with the Petersfield group.

Community Strategy: Mike Gibbs had distributed the document to Committee Members.

The minutes were approved.

3. Treasurer’s Report

The current account balance stood at £ 4578.96.
It was agreed that the end of year accounts to 31st March 2008 would be completed and submitted for examination as soon as possible.

The provisional date of 13 October 2008 at 7pm was agreed for the AGM. Vincent Edberg would see if that fitted in with the TDS schedule.

Liza Smith suggested a presentation to the next Community Forum. The Forum and PTC should be kept informed. The draft TDS would go out to consultation and to the Community Forum during this period.

Chris Paterson should be consulted about Community funding. An application for a second tranche of BLF funding would be expected.

4. Group Updates

Town Character Group

Recent meetings had concentrated on the Core Strategy which was a difficult document to work with. Two main areas were being considered:
1. New development siting
2. Housing
The new development at Bordon and Whitehill would have considerable impact on other areas.
EHDC were hoping to introduce workshops on the Core Strategy after the 6th May.
A meeting with EHDC on the TDS skeleton framework had gone well.
The Town Character Group would produce comments on the Core Strategy which would be brought to the Petersfield Tomorrow Management Committee to endorse.
The Chairman said the Group was empowered to take the consultation forward on behalf of Petersfield Tomorrow.
The TDS minutes were on the website.

Employment and Training for Young People

It was felt that the project had gone as far as it could and that small successes had been achieved by the group.
A positive outcome of the work was that it had raised the profile of the NEET children. This was an issue for the Community Strategy.
Alton College had tried to develop more vocational courses and had found communications with employers difficult.
TPS would make sure that young people knew about apprenticeships rather than just drifting off to college because of lack of suitable alternatives.

Another look would be taken at “Sport and Leisure and Open Space”. This section had not been well investigated in the early stages of Petersfield Tomorrow. A large study on Recreation and Open Spaces had been carried out by EHDC. Once the results were published any weaknesses could become the focus of another group project.
It was agreed that another look would be taken at the original worksheets and the questionnaire comments.
“Culture and Heritage” had not been researched in depth. This would be brought to the next Management Meeting.

Transport

Tony Shaw had circulated an update report.
Section 1.5: The Chairman pointed out that line 5 of this section was inaccurate according to his knowledge of the work going on at EHDC. Tony Shaw replied that he had definitely received the impression that EHDC was not interested in wheelchair-accessible taxis or disability awareness training for taxi drivers.
Many of the drivers were not members of the taxi drivers association and therefore not permitted to use the telephone booking system at the station.
Section 1.3: Hilary Ayer said Network Rail carried out a litter pick-up twice a year.
Section 1.4: Hospital journey details would be available when the Town Access Study was carried out in 2009.
Section 3.7: Disappointment was expressed at the rejection of a street audit on the grounds that no money was available until 2009. It was thought that Alan Todd (Highways Department in College Street) would probably walk the town with Tony Shaw.
The Chairman pointed out that the Highways budget was limited, although funds should be available for essential repair work. He suggested Tony Shaw attended a HAT meeting with him.
Section 3.10: the Committee held differences of opinion on what action should be taken on pedestrianisation of the town centre. Some members felt it was too long to wait for the Town Access Study in 2009 because the public had shown (questionnaire responses) that a majority was in favour of experimentation with a pedestrianisation scheme.

Natural Environment and Local Products

Philip Haines had been doing some work on local products.
Liza Smith had met with Terena Plowright.

5. Action Plan

The Chairman asked the Committee to check timescales and match budget items to columns of the fourth draft of the Action Plan. The intention was to take the Plan to issue at the next Committee Meeting.
Tony Shaw said that there would be no expenditure on Action Outputs 11 and 17.